Treasurer's Report, The (1928)
** (out of 4)
I'll admit right up front that the work of Robert Benchley has always been hit and miss with me but the majority of misses were films like this one here so keep that in mind. In the film Benchley is asked to give his club's financial report so for the next eight minutes he speaks about it. Benchley would go onto make several films like this at MGM, which pretty much had him asked to make a speech and he ends up making a mess out of it. I've yet to find one that made me laugh and the majority of them have gotten on my nerves within minutes. If you enjoy this type of short from Benchley then I'm sure you'll enjoy this one but needless to say it didn't work for me. The type of humor has Benchley slipping over his choice of words, knocking a water cup over, saying the wrong thing at the wrong time and various things like this. I just never found it to be funny and all the fidgeting just got on my nerves when it was suppose to be making me laugh. This Fox short was actually one of their earliest sound films as it was released just four months after THE JAZZ SINGER so I can see this really working back in 1928 but today it's just a lot of dry humor that didn't work with me.
